Heartsease
by Sasassy
Summary: "Touka?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper but Touka was still so attuned to him that she heard him perfectly well anyway. "What are you doing here?" The question hung heavy in the air, suspended in tension and expectations, until Touka couldn't take the bristling air of it any longer. "Just ... walking."
1. Chapter 1

"Oi, shitty Nishiki! How do you know you _like_ like someone?"

Nishiki almost dropped the tray loaded with dirty cups at Touka's unexpected question.

"What?" he squeaked, voice embarrassingly high. "Where's that come from all of a sudden?"

Why was she coming to _him_ for love advice all of a sudden?

Touka blushed.

"I-it's just ... a friend in school. She's not sure if she likes a guy like _that_ because they were friends for some time. So I promised to ask someone who would know. You like that human girl, don't you?" she asked, voice hard but the pink colour adorning her face softened the bite.

Nishiki tried hard to reign in the chuckle threatening to spill out of his throat and he almost succeeded. Touka was too preoccupied with being embarrassed that she didn't hear him anyway.

"Well, I do like Kimi," he admitted and internally, he couldn't help but think about his girlfriend, his heart beating faster in absolute love as he thought of her gentle personality and breath-taking smile. "So I could help you." He saw Touka's eyes lighting up with relief. "If I wanted to. But I don't so you're out of luck."

Touka's face fell as fast as the blush had set it aflame just moments before and this time Nishiki couldn't stop the amused laugh ripping from his chest.

"You're an asshole. Why do I even bother," she grumbled and made to get back out to the customers. Judging from how her shoulders sagged in disappointment she had actually hoped to get advice from him. Suddenly, he felt almost guilty for brushing her off so cruelly.

Nishiki silently contemplated his options and decided that offering Touka a few choice words wouldn't kill him after all.

"Fine, I'll help you out but you'll do my share of the dishes today," he said, hands propped on his hips and eyebrows rising in a challenging manner. He expected her to sneer at him and shrug it off at his condition. He didn't expect her to take his offer.

"Fine," Touka said with a sigh. "I'll do it. Now tell me how you know you're in love with someone."

Nishiki's lips twitched up into a smirk at her plea and the utter defeat in her voice. She was obviously desperate if she would ask him _and_ do the dished for an answer. If he hadn't been sure before, he would have been by now. There was no _friend in school_ she was asking for.

"Aww, who is little Touka crushing on?" He pulled her into a playful headlock and ruffled her hair with his free hand, earning a scandalized shriek from her. "They grow up so fast, one moment they act all 'don't touch me!' and the next they want to get in someone's pants."

"I don't want to get in anyone's pants!" Touka shouted at him and even though they were shielded from their customers' eyes back here, they could hear the room go completely silent. They must have heard her screaming.

"Alright," Nishiki relented and let her go before her rising voice would alert anyone to come to the back and check up on them. "We can talk later, since you're going to close the shop tonight and I'm unexpectedly free then."

Touka growled.

"You shitty –"

"Now now, kids," they heard Koma's voice drift over to them. "You should get back to work before the Devil Ape has to come out and make you."

Nishiki and Touka just glared at their co-worker but in the end, they did as he ordered them and went back to work. They didn't talk about their deal for the rest of the day.

##

"So," Touka started as she scrubbed at the last pile of dishes. The skin on her hands was already starting to wrinkle up and her nails started to turn see-through and weak. Why they still didn't have a dishwasher was beyond her, they would get good use out of one with these amounts of dirty dishes.

"So what?" Nishiki asked, mouth pulled into an obnoxious grin as he sipped his coffee and watched her do his work. "You have to get a little specific, dearest Touka."

He could almost hear her teeth grinding.

"So, _Nishiki_." He could almost hear the shitty attached to it. "How do you know you're in love with someone?"

"Aah," he sighed overdramatically and took another sip, slow and exaggerated. Her gaze was following him from the corner of her visible eye and Nishiki dragged his sip out, swallowing noisily and with a loud hum.

"Young love," he started and smirked internally. "Isn't it great?"

"You know what, I changed my mind." Touka shook the dishwater off her fingers and reached for a cloth to dry off. "I don't want your help. You can finish your work yourself."

She was about to storm off towards the changing room when Nishiki huffed a heavy breath.

"I'm just messing with you," he said almost apologetically. It was too hard not to mess with her when she got so spectacularly fed up with every little jab of his. "Talking about these kind of things isn't so easy."

"No shit," Touka grunted and crossed her arms over her chest, staring at him expectantly.

"I'm still surprised you dared to indirectly tell me about your crush," Nishiki remarked with a little wiggle of his eyebrows.

Touka blushed again but this time it seemed to be caused by equal amounts of anger as well as embarrassment.

"It's not my fucking crush, shitty Nishiki!" she shouted at him but the way her eyes couldn't fix him and the shaking of her hands revealed her obvious lie.

"Yeah, I know, it's a _friend at school_ , I gotcha." Nishiki took of his glassed and rubbed his eyes, sighing heavily.

"It's hard to say how you realise when you really like someone. For me, I just knew it one day and there was no doubt about it."

He put his glasses back on and looked at Touka who seemed to listen attentively to his every word. He felt bad for not being able to provide better advice, seeing her all hopeful like this. "I guess I'm not the best person to talk to. Maybe someone else –"

"How does it feel?" Touka interrupted him with furious determination in her eyes. "What does being in love feel like for you?"

He had to actually think hard about that one. It hadn't been an off-handed comment when he'd told her it wasn't an easy topic to talk about. It was incredibly difficult, all the more because he couldn't quite translate what he felt for Kimi into actual words that would make sense to someone else.

But Touka really went out of her way with this conversation. She was being almost vulnerable here, open to his words and showing a part of herself she'd never shown to him, so the least he could do was try and make sense.

"With Kimi ... I just feel at ease with her. I can just _be_ with her and be myself." Nishiki's heart soared at the thought of Kimi's acceptance of everything that he was and everything he couldn't be. She didn't judge, she only ever supported him.

"There's no need to pretend when I'm with her. I can just let go."

Touka was hanging off his lips, soaking up his words.

"So you just want to ... be with her? All the time?"

Nishiki thought about that question for a moment. Wasn't it obvious to her that wanting to be with someone indicated some kind of positive feelings? Then again, Touka was still young, she didn't have any experience with this sort of thing as far as he knew.

"Yeah, I want to be with her as much as I can," he answered patiently. He could have teased her again for her inexperience but he remembered being like her once, clumsy and lost with all things romantic. So he continued.

"It's not always peace, though. Other times I get really nervous when she's around. My hearts starts beating really fast and my fingers go numb when she smiles."

Nishiki couldn't hide the fond smile taking over his lips at the thought of Kimi's soft features melting into an adoring smile just for him and his heart skipped a beat.

"I know it sounds really stupid but –"

"Thank you!" Touka said in a breathless tone and darted out of the room before Nishiki could even react to her words.

"Ah," he mused, his grin growing wider. "I guess it's for the best I didn't get to the saucy parts."

##

"What an idiot," Touka mumbled into her pillow that night, as she replayed her conversation with Nishiki. "That's not being in love, that's just caring about someone, right?"

Her pillow, of course, didn't respond to her question and Touka groaned in frustration. Nishiki hadn't helped sorting out her thoughts at all. If it had done anything, it was make her feel even more confused.

Wasn't it only natural that she wanted Kaneki to be by her side again? They had spent so much time in the few months prior to his disappearance, of course she had gotten used to him being around. Of course she missed him now.

That wasn't love; that was routine.

 _My heart beats really fast..._

Of course her heart raced when Kaneki was around, he was infuriating and frustrating. High blood pressure and her heartbeat thumping high in her throat was a daily occurrence, just like rolling her eyes whenever he emitted that nervous chuckle of his or flicking his forehead with her finger when he got an order wrong _again_.

 _I can just let go..._

The fact that Touka had always been herself when with Kaneki didn't mean anything. It was easier, to not pretend to be something she wasn't, like she had to at school and even at work. She had shown him her true nature early on in their acquaintanceship and so had he – there was no need for pretences.

 _People give gifts to people they really like..._

Hinami's words were ringing in her ears again. Touka had thought she was talking about the signed copy of some book by that weird author they liked Hinami had intended to give to Kaneki, but the girl's smile had been uncharacteristically cheeky, almost mischievous, as she had said it and Touka's stomach had done a weird flip.

"None of that means anything," she grumbled as she finally slipped into sleep, clutching the rabbit key chain in her hand to her chest.

##

It did mean _something_.

She became painfully aware of it as one night while wandering around aimlessly, she crossed paths with a figure clad in a dark leather outfit and a familiar toothy grin on its masked face.

Touka felt all the blood drain from her face, her hands going numb with building anxiety. She hadn't seen him since that afternoon at the bridge, where she'd messed up the only chance of him coming back home.

And she just froze.

She wanted to move, she wanted to approach him and ask what he was doing here, why he was still staying away from Anteiku, she wanted to scream at him some more so the strained feeling in her chest would finally burst and go away but – she couldn't even blink.

Kaneki was the first to react, taking of his mask before he spoke.

"Touka?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper but Touka was still so attuned to him that she heard him perfectly well anyway. "What are you doing here?"

The question hung heavy in the air, suspended in tension and expectations, until Touka couldn't take the bristling air of it any longer.

"Just ... walking." She decided to go with the truth, in the end. She was still reeling from bumping into him so randomly, without any warnings whatsoever, she couldn't have come up with a convincing lie anyway. "Walking and clearing my mind."

Kaneki hummed quietly in apparent understanding and nodded. His mismatched eyes, one grey and the other a fiery red, wouldn't meet hers but Touka was sure he was watching her.

"Your exams are coming up soon, right?"

"Yeah." Touka sighed, ignoring the way her stomach clenched at his words. "That, too."

It had slipped out before she could have nipped it in the bud, filling the silence with endless implications of meanings Touka was too embarrassed to think about but Kaneki didn't seem fazed.

He just broke out into that tiny kind smile she hadn't seen in almost seven months and suddenly the dam broke, the taut ball of uncharted feelings in her chest bursting like a bubble and her mind went blank.

It meant something and it wanted to get out.

"I think I'm in love with you!" Touka blurted out, all of her inhibitions about saying it out loud pushed to the back of her mind by the fuzzy feeling taking over her torso, then her limbs, flooding her with prickling warmth.

Who knew when they would meet again after tonight. Who could possibly know if there was even going to be another again. She needed to get it out there, she needed him to hear it before she could change her mind and once again convince herself that she was being stupid, that there was nothing there in the way her heart would flutter when she thought of his gentle eyes or the way her lips twitched up at the corners when thinking of his smile.

"You ... what?" Kaneki said lamely, his mask dangling forgotten from his limp fingers and smile slipping from his lips as if it had never been there in the first place.

Anxiety hit her full force once again, her throat closing up and her sight narrowing down, going dark around the edges.

She took a deep breath to calm herself down.

She failed.

"I said I think I'm in love with you," Touka continued anyway, her voice brittle and shaky. She had made it this far already, backtracking wasn't an option anymore. Kaneki would never believe it, if Touka had tried to play it off it as a simple joke.

There was another pause, pregnant with insecurity and uncertainness.

"You think?"

He still wouldn't look at her, instead his eyes were fixed on the ground.

"Yes, I _think_ because I'm not sure and I'm terrified!"

Finally she couldn't keep her hands from shaking anymore and before she realised, she was shivering from head to toe in nervous anticipation. Her stomach felt weird again, like she had eaten another one of Yoriko's creations that looked delicious but tasted rotten.

 _Fitting_ , she thought. Her feelings for Kaneki were a lot like that. From books and movies and even _Nishiki_ , she knew that love was something to strive for, something to hold dear and treasure, like a precious gift. A gift that could turn one's life upside down in the best way possible, enrich and lighten it up like nothing else ever could.

And yet, in their world, a world of war between two species, love meant weakness. Love meant pain.

Love meant another soft spot that could and would be exploited.

Already, just a few days after fully realising her feelings, it left a foul taste in her mouth. Her feelings were bound to be left unrequited, with Touka being herself and Kaneki being Kaneki. They would drift by each other, like two ships passing at night as the saying goes, Touka too inexperienced with anything that wasn't handling pain and Kaneki too caught up in his quest for answers.

Even worse, however, was the prospect of her feelings being used against her.

Kaneki's voice was what ripped her from images of his broken body lying to her feet, a faceless Dove wiping blood from his quinque as he laughed at her pain.

"Why are you terrified?"

Touka gaped at him.

She had just declared her love for him and that was the detail he got hung up on? Scoffing, she shrugged her shoulders.

"Stupid Kaneki," she mumbled and the insult tingled on her lips, like a sweet memory from times long past, yet her stomach twisted into agitated knots.

 _Don't leave me. – I won't._

Touka wanted to tell him, explain why she was scared as all hell when she just thought about her feelings, but she couldn't. She couldn't tell Kaneki how much his empty and easily broken promise had hurt her, the last straw that broke her already abused back. She couldn't tell him how much she dreaded him being hurt like every other person in her life she had ever cared about.

Nishiki had been right, she hated to admit – talking about these kind of things was hard.

Still, Kaneki seemed to somehow understand what she didn't say and that same small smile was back on his lips, almost fond looking but overshadowed by sadness.

"I see," he said, a quiet whisper full of regrets and Touka's stomach clenched some more. He raised his mask to his face and she knew what was going to come, it had happened before and it would happen again and again.

Everyone ended up leaving her, after all.

This time, though, she would understand if he left her. She had ambushed him with her confession, anyone would run from that.

But for the second time that night, he surprised her with eyes softly crinkling at the corners, indicating his trademark smile now hidden beneath gruesome fake teeth.

"When I'm back at Anteiku, we can talk about all of this," Kaneki said as he fastened the straps of his mask so it sat snugly on his face, his features masked by heavy leather only to expose his activated kakugan. "Maybe you won't be terrified then, anymore."

Touka stared at him incredulously, her brain trying to process his words but they didn't quite compute.

"What?" she asked stiffly, an awkward croak that sounded embarrassing to her own ears. But Kaneki didn't react, he didn't laugh or scoff or roll his eyes. He simply held her gaze and inclined his head.

"You're coming back to Anteiku?" she finally dared to ask after a minute of piercing silence.

His answer was simple, just two words, so similar to those words that had shattered her trust in him just seven months earlier, before he jumped onto the roof of the adjoining building, leaving Touka on her own again.

This time she didn't feel alone.

This time, his words rang in her ears like a sweet benediction.

 _I will._

##

And he did.

He just didn't come back to her like she had imagined it in quiet moments, the sweet but awkward boy she remembered and hoped to see again someday, an embarrassed smile pulling at his lips and left eye hidden by an eyepatch.

Instead, she watched his every move, more confident and at ease than she had ever seen him, joking with his friends like all the hardships of his life had never happened. He seemed healthy and happy.

Kaneki, now Sasaki, didn't recognise her as it seemed but his presence still filled that gaping raw hole his disappearance had left in Touka.

For the first time in three years, Touka could feel her reeling mind slow down.

For the first time in three years, Touka felt somewhat at peace.


	2. Chapter 2

Hello! Unexpectedly I'm back with a part two. Who would have thought (certainly not me).

I wanted to thank all of you who favourited and commented on this story. You are the reason I keep going and I appreciate all of you very much. I'm also not that great with getting in touch with people, so I didn't directly reply to your comments (private messaging makes me hella nervous, I'm sorry).

So THANK YOU to all the reviewers! You are lovely and I gushed over every single comment I received.

* * *

Touka didn't remember a lot about her mother, but she could recall her overall content demeanour when interacting with her children.

 _Always count your blessings, sweetheart_ , she would say to Touka and Ayato. And Touka tried to count hers, she really did.

When they had lost Anteiku and the lives they had built with it, she had held onto the fact that Hinami and Yomo were still with her, safe and sound. When Hinami decided to run off on her own and eventually ended up joining Aogiri, Touka considered herself lucky that Yomo was still a remaining constant, the rock grounding her in her life.

When Kaneki came back to her like he had promised but in the form of Sasaki, she had felt incredibly blessed to have him back in her life, no matter the pain it actually caused her. She could live with him not remembering his past if it meant having him here at :Re, sipping her coffee with a content smile and telling her terrible jokes because for once he was happy enough to do so.

Touka did as her mother had always told her, she counted her blessings. If Kaneki being safe, sound and happy meant that Haise could never remember neither the time they had spent bonding and becoming friends at Anteiku, nor her desperate confession in the dead of the night before they parted for the last time, then she could live with it.

Sometimes, though, she wondered if that was what Kaneki would have wanted for himself, forgetting his friends and the family by choice he had found with them. There was no way of knowing for Touka though. She had often struggled with understanding Kaneki. So she held onto the fact that he had come back to her, just like he had promised her that night.

Dating Haise had come around in a strange way for Touka. He used to come over for coffee roughly once a week, until one day he just started showing up almost every day, always ordering black coffee (to no one's surprise) and always sitting at the counter instead of the table he would usually occupy with his underlings. He didn't talk much to Touka, constantly so engrossed in whatever book or file he had brought with him for the day but Touka didn't mind. She was perfectly happy knowing he was right there in front of her and feeling his presence looming comfortably in the background wherever she went.

But then he started talking to her.

At first it had been about trivial things like the weather or whether she had seen that latest movie released at the cinema around the corner. But then he had started perusing Touka's book shelves in the café more closely and realised that their tastes in books were stunningly similar. Touka's stomach clenched at his excited stutter when he had talked to her about that for the first time, unaware that the books he was holding out to her now used to be his own in his former life. Even then, when Touka felt like screaming inside in agony, she managed to smile at him and hold the conversation, talking about _The Black Goats Egg_ with as much enthusiasm she could muster up. It went swimmingly but after that first time he came back every evening and they would talk about books for hours, swapping recommendations and reviewing their latest finds with each other. It was familiar and comfortable for Touka, since Kaneki had used to do that all the time to try and get her into reading more. And even Haise seemed to subconsciously remember that if the nostalgic look on his face was anything to go by.

Talking books turned into talking their lives turned into talking about nothing at all and everything under the sun and before Touka was even fully aware of it, she had fallen for Haise like she had fallen for Kaneki, hard and irrevocably, and he had asked her to kiss him.

What was even worse, she had complied without even giving it a second thought.

It had been seven months since that evening and since they had mutually decided to take their friendship to a different level. And even though Touka was happy and content with their excitingly new relationship, she sometimes felt like something was missing.

The first time Haise had taken off his shirt in front of her Touka had giggled and congratulated him on finally heeding her advice of putting on some muscles. She hadn't meant to say it out loud or for him to even hear it, but he had and his confusion hurt her more than she cared to admit to herself.

She hated the fact that she had to force down food in front of him because he was with the CCG now and couldn't know that she was a ghoul.

She hated his casual talk about his missions, despite the fact that he never talked about details. She knew he was killing off her kind and she felt bile rise in her throat every time he did.

She hated those moments, the quiet ones, when his face would suddenly implode and his eyes grew cold and empty. Those moments when she felt him slipping away from her into unknown depths of his mind as he gripped his head and groaned in pain but still tried to hide from her how broken he really felt.

Touka hated how Haise tried to hide his condition from her, even though she should have been the one he trusted the most. Even though she was the one who wanted to help him the most.

But most of all she despised how she couldn't seem to let go of the past and move on. She couldn't seem to accept that Haise's memories of his life as Kaneki were gone and most likely gone for good. Touka still caught herself holding a grudge against Haise for being so oblivious to simple things that they used to share daily at Anteiku, only to hate herself for even having thoughts like that.

Counting her blessings could only get her so far.

"Touka?"

Touka snapped out of her thoughts and looked up at Haise. His eyes were etched with worry, yet still so gentle that Touka wanted to cry.

"Are you okay? You seemed really zoned out right now."

His hands slowly fell to his lap, closing the book he had been reading in the process. It used to be one of Kaneki's favourites. Haise read it for the first time.

"I'm okay," she sighed and her heart fell.

She couldn't do it anymore. She felt like she was losing it. How could she go on pretending that everything was perfectly fine when she was falling apart on the inside? How could she go on hiding that she knew more about him than he did when she couldn't even keep her cool in his presence anymore?

"You're lying."

Touka shivered. His voice was hard, almost harsh as he said those words. She had never heard him sound so angry before.

"What? Are you a mind reader now?" she asked with a playful smirk in the hope that it would diffuse the situation. But her smirk must have been as shaky a grimace as she felt it being because Haise didn't even lift an eyebrow. His stone-cold glare didn't even waver.

"Can we just stop playing games?" he said, almost demanded in that same harsh tone and it did nothing to soothe Touka's already tense nerves.

"What are you talking about, Haise? What kind of games?"

Her voice had decided to follow her fingers' example and trembled like a leave in a storm.

Haise took a shuddering breath before he released it in a forceful huff.

"Stop playing innocent! Do you think I don't see that something is wrong here?" He motioned his hands between them, indicating that he meant the two of them. "You're so distant all the time. You're right here in front of me and I still feel like you're so far away from me. And whatever I do, I can't reach you there."

Touka wanted to sink into the cushions of her couch, she felt so ashamed. The thought that Haise might have actually noticed her distancing herself from him hadn't even crossed her mind with how happy he always was around her. Just another reminder that he was a master at hiding while she was an open book spilling her ink across his waiting hands.

"That's not true," she started and fumbled with her fingers to hold onto something. It wouldn't do to lose her head now. They've come too far to lose everything now, just because Touka wasn't good enough at being satisfied. She counted her blessings, and the biggest blessing she had was being graced with Haise's presence after everything that had gone wrong. She didn't want to give that up. "It's not true. I'm not distant, I'm just ... tired and stressed. And ..."

Touka stopped and thought about the words she was about to say. She felt bad playing that card. It felt like she was blaming him for something he hadn't done but she couldn't see any other way out.

She felt cornered.

"You know I've never been in a relationship like that. It's difficult to adjust, sometimes."

As soon as the words had left her mouth she wanted to crawl into a hole and never come out again.

"That's bullshit."

Touka pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, trying to take up as little space as possible. She wanted to disappear into the gaps between the cushions so she wouldn't have to face his anger.

"You're still lying to me!" he shouted but flinched at his own voice and clasped a hand over his mouth. It was shaking.

"I'm sorry," he whispered and his eyes were wide with horror. "I didn't mean to shout. I'm just _so scared_. I feel like you're slipping away from me and there's nothing I can do about it. The happier I try to make you, the more you're drifting away from me and I can't ... I don't know ..."

"What do you mean the happier you try to make me?" Touka asked. For a second there she felt like she could hear Kaneki in those words. It would be such a Kaneki thing to say.

"I know I'm messed up, okay? You know I don't have a past and it's hard accepting that. There's so much I don't know or remember and I get weird flashes at the worst of times." His voice took on a frantic note. "I don't want to burden you with how fucked up I am, so I try to be happy for you. I try so hard. But-"

"You need to stop that right now," Touka said. Her voice was so hard it could have cut diamonds. But she was sure he wouldn't do as she said if she had said it any gentler. Kaneki had only realised how egoistical he had been when Touka had shown it to him in the harshest way she could have managed.

"You need to stop hiding your true feelings behind a facade for my sake right now. You need to stop faking something you're not."

Haise laughed disbelievingly, a sound so grating and raw, it sounded more like a dry sob than anything.

"No one would want to be with someone like me, Touka! I'm broken, why would anyone want that?"

"Stop that!" Touka shouted in frustration. "Gods, Haise, I've loved you long before you were faking happiness and I will still love you after you stop it. That's not the reason I fell in love with you!"

"Then what is? Because I swear I can't make sense of it."

"I could ask you the same!" she quipped and tried to make eye contact but he kept avoiding her. "You just started hanging around one day and I still don't understand why. I didn't give you the time of the day, I was an asshole and you still stuck around."

"I just had to! I was in love with you the second I saw you and I was terrified because I didn't even know you but I still couldn't help coming back to you again and again." Haise was heaving now, hysterics taking over his body and the shaking had spread from his hands to his whole body. "And when you finally opened up, I cried and couldn't figure out why."

Touka couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"What are you talking about? I don't get it."

Haise groaned and dropped his head into his hands, fingers snaking into his hair and gripping onto the strands and he winced in pain. Touka wanted to hold and comfort him so badly, but she was frozen to the spot.

"When I saw you for the first time I already knew that I loved you and I couldn't figure out why. I just knew and I wanted to run. It was terrifying. But you smiled at me, that beautiful smile you still show me every day – but you also seemed so sad. I hoped that ... that maybe you were someone who knew me. From before I lost my memories. And that's why I came back."

Touka thought about Yomo and what they had agreed on. Never to intrude too much, never to force Haise into a certain direction. Never to tell him anything unless he specifically asked if something was a memory or a hallucination.

One look at Haise's pleading eyes and Touka threw it all away.

"What would you say if I told you that I did?"

Haise closed his eyes and a tear fell down his cheek with the action. Touka wanted to smooth it away and hug him, pull him so close and hold him so tight that he forgot all the pain eating away at him.

"I would ask you why?" he whispered as another tear fell. "Why you kept that from me?"

"To protect you, I would say," Touka said truthfully and reached out to wipe at his cheeks. Haise started, but he didn't pull away from her.

"Did I use to be such a horrible person? That I need protection from it?" His voice sounded so tired, so drained of any energy and Touka's decision was made for her.

"You were one of the gentlest and kindest people I've ever known. You are now, and you have been five years ago when we first met."

Haise crumbled at her words, hunching over so much that his head hung almost between his knees. Touka decided to try her luck and scooted closer, draping her arm across his back as the other one reached down, hand finding Haise's cheek and turning his face to look at her.

"Tell me what to do, Haise. It's your choice," she said gently as she wiped away more tears and smiled softly at him. She could feel her own tears threatening to fall.

His eyes were boring into hers, searching her insistently for whatever he needed to know before he swallowed and leaned his cheek into her cupped hand.

"T-tell me about Kaneki?"

"Of course," she sighed and stroked his cheek. Haise moved to sit up so he could look at her comfortably while she talked, but Touka didn't plan on saying a lot. There was too much at stake for her to just go poking around his brain with her limited knowledge of amnesia and memory loss. But she knew there were some things she could tell him.

"Kaneki was the first person I ever fell in love with. He was a shy but incredibly kind boy. He always looked out for other people, to the point that he left his family and me to keep us safe."

"Did he ever come back to you?"

Touka smiled at him fondly and finally her tears fell as well.

"Yeah," she breathed and wiped her cheeks briskly. "He did come back in a way."

"In a way?"

"Yes, in a way. He came back grown up and not so shy anymore. Still kind and warm-hearted." She looked at him intently so he wouldn't be able to miss the intention of her next words. "He has a thing for terrible puns now, though."

Haise's breath left him in a shaky rush and in the blink of an eye he had swept her off her seat and wrapped her up in his arms.

"I knew it," he rasped into her neck, his breath uneven and hot against her skin. She stroked his hair soothingly as he let go and cried. "I knew I knew you when I first saw you. And that voice in my head – Kaneki – he kept screaming at me whenever I saw you. I never understood what he was screaming."

"Is he still screaming at you now?"

Haise shook his head.

"No," he sobbed, but it sounded relieved and almost ecstatic. "For the first time in almost three years, he's calm."

"I'm glad," she choked out and buried her face in his hair, offering as much comfort as she could and taking as much as he provided. She could feel his tears wetting her skin and she could barely hold back her own tears at that. Haise was so scared, so emotionally exhausted and Touka had played a huge part in it. She didn't think that she could ever forgive herself for it. But it got them to this point, to a point of being honest with each other again. Maybe for the first time in years.

"Touka?" Haise asked quietly, a shaky hiccup tailing the word.

"What is it ... Haise?" she asked, and she wasn't even sure herself what she was asking for. Was it still Haise talking to her? Where there even different people to begin with?

"Can we just ... maybe ... start over?"

His voice hitched, barely suppressing another hiccup and Touka found herself clinging onto him even tighter, wrapping him up even more in her embrace and he reciprocated it like a drowning man holding onto a lifebelt.

Touka thought about the lie they had been living in the past year and all the possibilities spreading out in front of them, now that the secret was about to be out in the open. She smiled.

"Of course, Haise. We can do that."

She could rather feel than hear his relieved sigh and his heart slowed down against her chest.

And her heart followed his.

* * *

That's probably it for this story. Unless inspiration hits again and I just have to continue.

Thanks for reading!


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